American presidents since Thomas Jefferson have sought to bring Cuba into the orbit of the United States. President Bush recently took this policy into its third century.

Speaking to an audience in Washington that included Cuban exiles, Bush described Cuba as a "tropical gulag" where jailers practice "horrors" that will, when revealed, "shock the conscience of humanity." No, he was not referring to the US complex at Guantanamo. He meant the rest of Cuba, which suffers under a different form of injustice.

Under Fidel Castro's long rule, most ordinary Cubans have enjoyed better lives than their counterparts in nearby countries like Haiti or Guatemala. They have also, however, lived without political freedom and been subject to waves of repression. Nearly all Cubans, as well as outsiders who care about Cuba, look forward to better times in the post-Castro era.

President Bush announced in his speech that the United States would insist on playing a major role in shaping the transition to this new era. In his speech he unveiled what he said would be a multi-billion-dollar program to assure the right kind of "fundamental change" in post-Castro Cuba.

The idea that Cubans would welcome Americans as bearers of democracy, however, can seem realistic only to those ignorant of Cuban history.

In 1898 the United States sent troops to Cuba to help Cuban patriots overthrow Spanish rule. Before the troops set out, Congress made a solemn pledge: "The people of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent. ... The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over said island."

The Spanish were quickly defeated, but the US reneged on its promise to allow Cuban independence. Cuba fell under American control for the next six decades, first through direct rule and then through a series of colorfully brutal dictators culminating with Fulgencio Batista.

Americans broke their promise to Cuba because they were terrified by policies the incoming Cuban leaders were planning to adopt. The new regime was going to break up American-owned sugar plantations and distribute the land to poor families. It also planned to encourage the growth of industry by imposing tariffs on imports from the United States. Most disturbingly, its leaders seemed unwilling to allow US military bases on Cuban soil.

"Self-government!" the American commander in Cuba, general William Shafter, snorted in disgust after learning of these proposals. "Why, these people are no more suited to self-government than gunpowder is to hell."

That attitude shaped relations between Washington and Havana until Fidel Castro's guerrilla victory in 1959. In his first speech after seizing power, Castro said he was redeeming the promise to Cuba that the United States broke in 1898.

"This time the revolution will not be frustrated!" he declared. "It will not be like 1898, when the Americans came in and made themselves masters of the country."

Castro's revolution was a delayed but direct reaction to the broken American promise of 60 years before. If the United States had kept its word and allowed Cuba to become independent in 1898, the phenomenon of Castro-communism would probably never have emerged.

A half-century of US economic embargo against Cuba has prevented the development of a middle class that might now be able to guide a peaceful transition to the post-Castro era. In its absence, President Bush has stepped into the breach. His recent speech was a clear warning that the United States will insist on a strong role in shaping Cuba's future.

He is wrong to insist on this. Any forceful American intervention in Cuba over the coming years will set off intense resistance from a nation that still has a vivid collective memory of the 1898 betrayal and the long period of tyranny that followed. If it encourages irredentist exiles, it could even set off armed conflict.

Change must and will come to Cuba in the post-Castro era. It will only be stable and long-lasting if it shaped peacefully by forces within the island, not violently by Americans or embittered outsiders. An explosive, unstable and angry Cuba will cause even more trouble for the United States than Fidel Castro has.